I is for Important Also Irritating, Irresponsible, Incorrigible
by Su-Whisterfield
Summary: Scott is charged with the protection of The Quiet Council. Good luck with that. Kill no man. Does that include the nicest guy anyone knows? The one everybody likes, everybody agrees is a sweetheart? Passive aggressive, it's an art-form, isn't it, Mr Wagner?
1. Chapter 1 I is for Important

Kill no man.  
Does that include the nicest guy anyone knows? The one everybody likes, everybody agrees is a sweetheart?  
Passive aggressive, it's an art-form, isn't it, Mr Wagner?

He needs security, everyone agrees on that at least.  
Me, Gorgon, Lucas, Charles, the other members of The Council. Logan. Everyfrickin'one.

But when we suggest it, he blinks those pretty gold eyes and shakes his head.  
"_Nein_, Scott, I don't want to put anyone out. I don't need a babysitter."  
_Nein_ to Jean too. Even to Ororo, and that takes balls, let me tell you.

Gorgon just goes ahead and assigns a security detail at this point.

Which works as well as you'd expect, when their charge can (and will) teleport away on a whim.  
There are times when I think Pixie has more self-control. Certainly more self-preservation.  
After the day when security spend eight hours outside his habitat, guarding an empty room, because he 'ported out in the morning and they don't realise until he saunters home in the evening, I send in the big gun, sit back and wait for the bang.

Logan slouches right up to him, takes him by the arm and frogmarches him out. Oops. Possibly I may have over-emphasised the problem?  
I'd better keep half an eye on them, in case of blood.

They're in the atrium below, in a quiet corner.  
There's clearly a 'discussion' going on, if they were cats, there'd be hissing. And flattened ears.  
Then Logan reaches out and, ever so gently, cups Kurt's cheek with his hand. Can't hear them, but whatever he's saying, Kurt bows his head. Nods. Meek as a little lamb.

Easy as that. I'd love to know what he said, but Kurt doesn't give us any more trouble over having security.

We really don't want him eating in public cafeteria or using the public gym either.  
They're security nightmares.  
Thanks to Emma and Jean, he has the most spectacular psi-shields money can't buy. We deliberately used the pair of them, so if one of them is comprised, the others work should be intact. We used the same system on me, you can just never be too cautious.

For now, he's carrying on as normal, but we may have to have further Words.  
His security team adore him. We have to rotate them out regularly, they're getting too attached. He's not their friend, he's their responsibility.  
But I know it's hard, he's just so damn friendly.

Worst of it is, he's not deliberately difficult.  
He's just not used to being Important.  
Oh, he's important to us. Always has been. We're family and we take care of our own.  
Ororo and Logan are his champions and would kill to protect him. Peter too. Peter especially.

But now he's Important important.  
Important to people other than the family.

The Council is a mixed bag of characters. But they are all, with only one exception, Important.  
Some of it's money, Emma and Shaw and Charles.  
Kurt has no money. Not really interested in it. Charles payrolls the Team and the main expense with Kurt is custom gym kit, which is nothing compared to the cost of, oh, Hank's lab. Or a Blackbird or two?.  
Some it's political. Charles, Eric, Emma again.  
Kurt has zero interest in politics.  
Physical power makes some of them important, like Jean and Ororo, Paris, Apocalypse.  
Kurt isn't physically weak, watch him in the gym, you don't get to use the rings or the horse if you're weak. But he's not a powerhouse, not important in that way, he can just from A to B very, very fast. Okay, and with panache, got to give him that.  
Then there's Sinister, our very own mad scientist who's important because of his DNA database, much as I wish we didn't need him.  
And Mystique. Who is in a class of her own.  
I really wish Kurt didn't have to sit on Council with that awful woman, but Charles insists.

So he stands out on The Council as being the one who's just not interested in power, not interested in being Important, in any form.

The Council are meeting with the Captains.  
And there's no sign of Kurt.  
Which is unusual, he can be a little... flakey but he's usually punctual.  
His security detail, O'Donnell and Brooks, who should be outside his habitat? He's given them the day off. Of course he has. They don't answer to him, they answer to the Captains, and boy, are they gonna answer to us if anything has happened to him. Gorgon is seething.  
Jean has Logan on psylink, he's on his way to Kurt's habitat.  
I glance across at Illyana, it's so tempting to ask her to just pop us over there, but the poor guy deserves _some_ privacy.  
Jean's head jerks up. Trouble.

So much for his privacy.  
Illyana ports us all over, me, Jean, Gorgon, Ororo.  
Anymore and we'd be charging admission.

Hell of a mess.

Logan's on his knees in the bathroom, there's blood everywhere.  
He's got a towel pressed to Kurt's temple.  
He's sat on the toilet, looking like he went six rounds with The Juggernaut. He's stark naked and you can hear the wheeze of his breathing across the room.  
Gorgon and 'Yana are in full combat mode. Ororo is only focused on getting to Kurt. I don't want her in there until we know what's going on, don't want any new casualties.  
"Wolverine. Report." I snap.  
He lifts his head and sees us all. "No threat. Stand down."

Looks like he slipped in the bathroom, cracked his head on the way down. He was probably cleaning his teeth hanging upside down from the ceiling, or some other dumb shit a grown adult shouldn't have been doing.  
He's spent at least six hours on a cold tiled floor and Cecelia thinks he's got pneumonia. As well as the concussion and scalp laceration.  
Brilliant result, Kurt, well done.

"I'm so... sorry." He's not got much voice and the hiss of the nebuliser is constant.  
Ororo stokes his hair. "It's alright, beloved. Sleep now."  
He glances over at me and Logan. It's really hard, when you don't know whether you want to hug someone or put them over your knee and spank them. Not that his watchdogs would let you, it's just theoretical. Besides, grown adult. But still, tempting.  
"Please..." Pause for wheezy breath. "Please don't be cross with David and Phil." That's O'Donnell and Brooks, his security detail. Too late, Kurt, Gorgon has probably ripped them both a new one by now.  
He tries to sit up, the dressing on his temple is ridiculously white against the blue. Ororo gently stops him but the docs have had enough of us, we're thrown out. Council or no, the doctors have the last say.

This time it's Charles who has The Conversation. In our habitat, where the invalid is convalescing. He doesn't really need to convalesce, The Healing Gardens are extremely good, but Jean has decreed that it's easier to keep an eye on him up there. And better for my blood pressure.  
He does the eyes thing. And has Charles eating out of his hand. Damn.

Right, it's me and Logan. Gird our loins, this time it's gonna stick. No Jean or Ororo. Too soft on him, all the women are.

*******  
So, David and Phil are back on guard duty, along with Philippa and Alice, Karl and Joe.  
He can still use the cafeteria, and the gym.  
David and Phil are due a written apology from Gorgon, for him being mean to them.

I suspect we may have been played.

But when those intense gold eyes focus on you...  
And all those soft '_ja's'_ and '_nein's'_.  
Sigh.  
Who knew 'nice' could be an offensive weapon?


	2. Chapter 2 A Night On The Tiles

Got a call from Jeannie, Elf is MIA from a feckin' Council meetin'.  
Fer fucks sake.  
Wot am I? His fuckin' secretary?  
'Cept she's worried, an' Jeannie don't worry over nothin'.  
An Kurt? Well, yeah, my lad's many things but he's usually reliable.

So I'm on my way up to his rooms.

Door open for me, they're keyed to open to people he trusts. So that's me. Oh, let's be honest, that's probably half the Island.

Smell hits me soon as I'm through the door. Blood. Fuck.  
I drop to a defensive crouch. But there, under the metallic blood is another smell, the sweet, nasty smell of sickness. Fuck. Where are you, laddie?  
**Jeannie? Trouble.**

The lounge is clear, bedroom too. Bathroom.  
Fuck, it's a fuckin' bloodbath.  
What the hell?

I sit him on the toilet. Crouch down in front of him. He's zoned out, the left side of his face is scarlet with blood, it's all over the floor, the side of the bath too.  
"Elf? Kurt?" No response. I can hear the wheeze of his chest. I grab a towel and try to wipe away some of the gore, it's clotting, he's been bleeding for a while, how long has he been lying here?  
"...logan..." He's got no voice. Up close, the sound of his chest is horrible. He lifts his head, makes a grasp for my forearm. He's cold, the fingers are icy against me. Ah, bright lad, what happened to ya'?

There's a flash of light in the lounge, then the place is full of people, half the feckin' Council.  
Popular, my lad is. Nah, it's not that. It's Kurt. Our Kurt. It's not just me that cares for him.

"Wolverine. Report?" Slim's voice is tense. Shit, forgot about the audience.  
"No threat, stand down."

'Ro is beside us, kneeling in the blood, she looks distraught.  
"Kurt? Kurt!" She cups his head in her hands, looks at me. "What happened? Who hit him?"  
She looks around the bathroom for super-villains, no one is there.  
"S'okay, 'Ro, I think he got sick, think he fell and hurt himself."  
Her face goes from anger to sorrow and she reaches out to push the tangled, bloody hair off his forehead. "Oh, Kurt, beloved."  
"...ororo?..." He looks around at his anxious audience, he looks confused and frightened.  
I really do not like the wheeze of his breathing.

She passes me a bath towel to wrap him in, he's stark naked, and I pick him up, he's six inches taller than me, see, he's not really a 'little lad' he's a strapping guy, but he's my boy, an' I carry him when he needs it. As he would for me.  
He has his head on my shoulder, now I can feel the heat coming off him; he was cold when I first found him. Scotty comes over.  
"What a mess. Let's get him down to The Healing Garden."  
"Oh," Jeannie's in the doorway, puts her hand to her mouth. She looks around the bathroom. "How long has he been here?"

Gorgon is looking at the lot of us like we've lost our minds.  
We're not just team, we're family. The core of us. Hell, we're closer than some families, stronger. We don't always get on an' it's 'Ro an' Jeannie an' Elf who are the glue which holds us together.  
Don't give a fuck what he thinks.

'Yanna 'ports us all down to that Healin' place.

Well, that was the end of my quiet shift. Half the Quiet Council tuning up in a flash of light.  
Out. Out. Out. It's like shooing chickens.  
I get Wolverine to put my patient down on the bed.  
"What's the story?"  
"Found him on the floor in his bathroom like this, he's been there a while."  
"Okay. Kurt?" I get into his eyeline, not much of a glow there, sure sign he hurt.  
"He was cold when I got there but he's burnin' now, an' he sounds all wheezy."

That's a few more pieces to the puzzle. I start rattling off a list for Deb my duty nurse. We'll start with a head and chest CT and X-Ray, don't want to mess about with a possible skull injury. Then we'll see about his chest, he does indeed sound very wheezy.  
Temp's high, BP low, he's lost a fair bit of blood and I'll bet a dollar that his oxygen saturation is right off.  
Logan's still here, I could do with him out too, but it's not worth the upset and argument, he'll shift when we get the X-Ray over here, he's not actually stupid. How the hell did you manage to get in the kinda mess in your own bathroom, Kurt? Impressive, even for you.  
Right, let's get to work.

Thirty minutes later, I find the time to go update his entourage.  
I look round at anxious faces, Charles, Eric and Peter Rasputin to add to my collection. Oh, this is going down in the record books.  
"Okay. He's going to be fine but it's going to take a week or so." Several people open their mouths to speak, I raise my hand to cut them off before they start. "First things first. The scalp laceration is superficial, he's possibly got a mild concussion, certainly got a headache but there's no skull fracture or bleeding as far as we can tell. More worrisome, he has pneumonia in both lungs, I don't yet know if this is bacterial or viral, we're running cultures now. I'm a little concerned how fast this has taken hold, when did anyone last see Kurt and was he unwell at the time?"

They all look at each other. Okay, so much for the 'team as family' which gets trotted out every time they want to be underfoot. "Can we find out? Doesn't he have security? When did they last see him?"  
Well, that opens a can of worms. They all talk all over each other. These are busy, important people, they've been all over the place, doing all sorts of busy, important things.  
Sigh.  
Near as I can pin down, it's three days since anyone saw him, two days since he emailed The Council to say that a report he was working on would be late as he had a cold. One day since his dismissed his security, by text, which everyone seems to agree is unusual, because he felt, and I quote 'a bit under the weather'.  
Double sigh.

They all want to see him. No. This is not a petting zoo.  
I let Logan and Ororo, Jean and Scott in, which is two more than I'd really like.  
The nebuliser is really helping, but his oxygen levels are still too low and he's a bit spaced out, I don't let them stay for long.

Truth be told, I'm still a bit cross.  
This young man, their, supposed, friend, was lying alone for at least seven hours, possibly as long as twenty hours, on a cold tiled floor. He'd been ill for at least a couple of days and no one had checked up on him, not even a quick call. I want them to think about that.

When I scoot them all out, I'm aware of Wolverine, still skulking about. Hm. Some of them are easier to intimidate with my doctor-fu than others.  
But Hank is on duty in an hour. He can have the fun of evicting him.


	3. Ch 3 The Queen Mum and the Royal Corgi

"So..." Hank takes the handover from her. "I hear you had half the royal court down here this morning?"  
"Oh, you could say that." She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Never a dull moment, you know us."  
"And how is The Queen Mother?"  
She laughs and shakes her head. "Actually, 'she' is quite a poorly lad." She pulls up a file on the computer. "It _is_ pneumonia."  
"How the hell did he manage that without anyone noticing?"  
"You're guess is as good as mine. Crack on the head and a night lying on a cold, hard floor really didn't help."  
"When Kurt does something, he doesn't do it by halves, bless him. Okay, I'll keep an eye on him. I'm just impressed that you managed to persuade his watchdogs to leave him here with us, unattended."  
"Ah. Well, yes." She takes off her white coat and reaches for her bag. "There might still be the odd corgi underfoot."  
"Hm, let me think, a particularly short, grumpy, smelly one?"  
"However did you guess?"  
"Sigh. Years of experience, Cecelia, years of experience."


	4. Ch 4 On The Care And Feeding Of Your Elf

"Right." Hank ticks the points off on his big, blue digits. "First, rest, sleep. Sleep some more. Go to bed, stay there. Sleep. When you're bored of sleep, roll over and go back to sleep.  
Second, fluids, lots of water, juice, warm drinks, tea is good. No coffee. Soup. Jewish penicillin.  
Third, take you meds, on time, every time. Finish the antibiotics. They're pretty strong, so they might upset your gut, let me know if they do, I'll send another prescription, but don't stop taking them.  
Four, and this is important, no exercise. None. Nada. Null. _Nein_. Got that? Nothing that increases your heart rate or breathing."  
"I don't think I could..." Kurt pauses for a breath. "...right now."  
Hank scowls. "You say that, but, remember, I know you. No exercise for at least a week. No gym. No training. No early morning calisthenics. Not even Yoga. Nothing."  
He glances over at Kurt's watchdogs. "Bed. Sleep. Keep him there, even when he's feeling, and I quote 'better'. He's not better until I give the say so. Got it? That goes double for feeling 'fine'." They nod, obediently. He turns his attention back to his patient. "I hope I don't have to mention this, but just to be on the safe side, no teleporting." Kurt bows his head, looks away. "Say it..."  
"Yes, Hank."  
"Good. Bed. Sleep. Read a book. Read a dozen books. But most of all, rest. Am I making myself clear?"  
"Yes, Hank."  
"Right, he's all yours." He hands the prescription bag to Jean. The list of care and feeding instructions to Ororo. Logan starts pushing the wheelchair out of The Healing Gardens. "Good luck." He says to Scott as he follows the entourage. Scott gives him a slightly desperate look, Hank raises his hands, he's done his best.  
He goes back to his paperwork.  
Three days. He gives it three days before Kurt is feeling well enough to do _something_ he's proscribed from doing. Hank sighs, they'll cross that bridge when they come to it.


End file.
